Beirut, June 20, 2017--French cameraman Stephan Villeneuve and Iraqi fixer Bakhtiyar Haddad were killed in an explosion that also injured French journalists Veronique Robert and Samuel Forey as they covered Iraqi soldiers' efforts to retake control of the old city of Mosul yesterday, according to news reports and theFrench journalists' employers.
The journalists were embedded with elite Iraqi soldiers, traveling on foot through Mosul when an improvised explosive device exploded, news reports said. Alex Kay Potter--a nurse who was on the initial treatment team and who acts as director of communications for Global Response Management (GRM), an international nonprofit that provides medical care on the frontlines of conflicts--told CPJ that Haddad, Forey, Villeneuve, and Robert were initially treated at a trauma stabilization point run by GRM and Iraqi Special Operations Forces. Villeneuve, Robert, and Forey were then transported to a nearby military medical facility for further treatment, Potter said. Kurdish broadcasters Rudaw and Kurdistan 24 reported that Haddad died of his injuries soon after the explosion.
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